Afoot in England eBook

I remarked that at the next village, which had three
public-houses, there were a good marry persons so poor
that they would gladly at any time take a shilling
from any one.

It was the same everywhere in the district, she said,
except in that village which had no public-house.
Not only were they better off, and independent of
blanket societies and charity in all forms, but they
were infinitely happier. And after the day’s
work the men came home to spend the evening with their
wives and children.

At this stage I was surprised by a sudden burst of
passion on her part. She stood up, her face
flushing red, and solemnly declared that if ever a
public-house was opened in that village, and if the
men took to spending their evenings in it, her husband
with them, she would not endure such a condition of
things—­she wondered that so many women endured
it—­but would take her little ones and go
away to earn her own living under some other roof!

Chapter Five: Wind, Wave, and Spirit

The rambles I have described were mostly inland:
when by chance they took us down to the sea our impressions
and adventures appeared less interesting. Looking
back on the holiday, it would seem to us a somewhat
vacant time compared to one spent in wandering from
village to village. I mean if we do not take
into account that first impression which the sea invariably
makes on us on returning to it after a long absence—­the
shock of recognition and wonder and joy as if we had
been suffering from loss of memory and it had now suddenly
come back to us. That brief moving experience
over, there is little the sea can give us to compare
with the land. How could it be otherwise in
our case, seeing that we were by it in a crowd, our
movements and way of life regulated for us in places
which appear like overgrown and ill-organized convalescent
homes? There was always a secret intense dislike
of all parasitic and holiday places, an uncomfortable
feeling which made the pleasure seem poor and the
remembrance of days so spent hardly worth dwelling
on. And as we are able to keep in or throw out
of our minds whatever we please, being autocrats in
our own little kingdom, I elected to cast away most
of the memories of these comparatively insipid holidays.
But not all, and of those I retain I will describe
at least two, one in the present chapter on the East
Anglian coast, the other later on.

It was cold, though the month was August; it blew
and the sky was grey and rain beginning to fall when
we came down about noon to a small town on the Norfolk
coast, where we hoped to find lodging and such comforts
as could be purchased out of a slender purse.
It was a small modern pleasure town of an almost
startling appearance owing to the material used in
building its straight rows of cottages and its ugly
square houses and villas. This was an orange-brown
stone found in the neighbourhood, the roofs being